What the Fungi? Not Our Snakes, Too!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oneart...b_3984253.html

Been looking for it here on all the snakes I find in the wild. Nothing as of yet, I hope it stays that way.

There was a Washington Post article about it a few days ago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...964_story.html

I saw Kevin McCurley give a talk about that last year at an MHS meeting, I think the leading suspect is a fungus that has been 'developed' for use as an insecticide on crops. The Fungus eats keratin which is what insect shells are made of, unfortunatly it's also what snake scales are made of.

anyone have pics of it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkS

I saw Kevin McCurley give a talk about that last year at an MHS meeting, I think the leading suspect is a fungus that has been 'developed' for use as an insecticide on crops. The Fungus eats keratin which is what insect shells are made of, unfortunatly it's also what snake scales are made of.

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Aren't fingernails and hair made of keratin too?

Yup, though I'm not sure it's exactly the same. I suppose we'll all be going bald soon.

At the last herp society meeting here in Madison we had a scientist who is studying SFD come in and talk to us. He didn't mention anything about it being caused by a fungal insecticide. In fact a lot is still unknown about what causes it and even how to treat it. They actually seem more interested in discovering if this is actually a threat to populations and if it is exotic or native (like the white-nose syndrome in bats for example would be an exotic disease that was brought in from Europe - England specifically if I remember correctly).

Grants right now are being issued to monitor snake populations and in the more critical areas to help these animals recover. Snakes with sever cases of SFD have actually recovered when brought into captivity. Since they don't know what is causing it they don't know how to treat it, but an observation that has been made is that it is believed to infect multiple layers of skin and snakes have been observed shedding a few layers at once in an effort to remove it.

SFD seems more concentrated in the cooler areas like IL, WI, OH and NH to name a few. One of the theories is that what some field herps call hibernation blister disease (I believe that's what he sad some were calling it) might actually be SFD and snakes that are able to get fed and shed soon after emerging from hibernation have a better chance of shedding the fungus. This would explain why it seems more prominent in colder regions, but as with most things they don't seem willing to give a definitive answer.

Not sure if anyone actually wanted that information, but it's what I know at this time. That's about 1.5 hour lecture summarized for you. :P